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Kavak posted:What happened to the ships the Kelvin was looking for? Are they space dust? Think t least the mission summary for the Kelvin described them coming onto the debris cloud with hte implication that the Klingon ship had already explodied them in ambush. And maximum droneswarm is the funnest. Well, second to being in a Feddie DN and tractor slapping someone into place and then unloading several tubes of overloaded photons into them. Which you don't do because you -have- to, but because it's fun. ... Also this thread makes me wish that GoG would do Starfleet Command compatible with newer OS's as SFC 1 is only good on Win 7. wedgekree fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 06:51
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I'm gonna suggest that our two player captains stagger their plasmas rather than trying to fire them both on the same turn.
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Jun 21, 2017 07:18
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wedgekree posted:Think t least the mission summary for the Kelvin described them coming onto the debris cloud with hte implication that the Klingon ship had already explodied them in ambush. That's correct, the Klingons had done a much better job ambushing the supply vessel's escort (maybe they had more ships on hand). They boarded and captured the freighter and sent it back home with a prize crew. I wanted to move on to getting players in the game ASAP and the only vote was for Romulan, so that narrative thread will have to serve as a vignette. I look forward to the number of plasma torpedoes we will see thrown in this scenario. Unfortunately the table mind games will be harder to pull off with the same player actually performing all the moves. To help with this I am going to be pre plotting the Gorn movement fully, with a break rule to evade launched torpedoes to the best of their ability.
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Jun 21, 2017 07:22
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VendoViper posted:For anyone following along at home, for context check out "The Balance Of Terror" from ToS Season 1. The Romulans make their screen debut. In that episode they are piloting a much older "Bird of Prey" without warp engines. These War Eagles are much more advanced, developed in response to their encounter with the Enterprise. As I recall (from SFC, which took its ship designs straight from SFB), these War Eagles are basically their old, pre-warp ships refitted with warp engines. Romulans in SFB have three broad 'categories' of ship. The War Eagle belongs to the first one, the Pre-Warp designs, which are generally refits of older, pre-war ships. They have powerful weapons and good shields for their cost but really lovely power and secondaries, and you can kind of see how. Technically, War Eagles are heavy cruisers (CA), and right now you're being matched with a destroyer (DD) and a light cruiser (CL, although the sheet refers to it as a CA). Notice that the light cruiser has more power than you do despite being smaller. The Romulans also have a series of Klingon Refits, which are Klingon hulls (good maneuverability, but poor secondary systems and aft shields) with plasma/cloaking, and then they have their new series, which are top of the line high-tech vessels. Interestingly, War Eagles have Armor, which is rare on Star Fleet Battles ships. SFB warships are very much designed like modern ones, in that they are largely unarmored and rely heavily on active defenses (shields, ECM, point defense, stealth in the case of the Romulans) over just tanking poo poo with their hull. The closest you get to that are probably the Gorn, who build ships tough, with hard hulls and tons of system redundancy to soak up damage. Outside of some weird edge cases, armored ships are generally primitive hulls, and you can sort of see why. The War Eagle has 5 points of armor on its hull, which might have been adequate in those pre-warp days but will maybe stop a single Ph-1 at close range, if at that.
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Jun 21, 2017 09:28
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VendoViper posted:For anyone following along at home, for context check out "The Balance Of Terror" from ToS Season 1. The Romulans make their screen debut. In that episode they are piloting a much older "Bird of Prey" without warp engines. These War Eagles are much more advanced, developed in response to their encounter with the Enterprise. It's a WW2 submarine vs destroyer thriller in space, which I think is why it works so well.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:46
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wedgekree posted:... Also this thread makes me wish that GoG would do Starfleet Command compatible with newer OS's as SFC 1 is only good on Win 7. What they need to do is get Empires at War and Orion Pirates up already, along with Klingon Academy.
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Jun 21, 2017 16:03
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Yep. Shields up, phasers and torps charged, cloak on standby. Head up the left side of the map. If I remember correctly, batteries can be used for instant shield reinforcement on a hit? If so, wire the batteries to the shields.
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Jun 21, 2017 19:14
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VendoViper posted:For anyone following along at home, for context check out "The Balance Of Terror" from ToS Season 1. The Romulans make their screen debut. In that episode they are piloting a much older "Bird of Prey" without warp engines. These War Eagles are much more advanced, developed in response to their encounter with the Enterprise. In SFB, the ship flown in "Balance of Terror" is a Warbird. The War Eagle is a Warbird with warp engines strapped on. Important note to Added Space: Viper is probably NOT using the Hidden Cloak rule (which makes the ships actually invisible to the other side, and is only useable with an impartial GM) I was using with Romulans. He will probably be using the standard rule where the cloak is "only" an extremely effective ECM system and you always know what hex the ship is in. Still powerful, but might not be what you were expecting.
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Jun 21, 2017 19:14
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So is SFB using a different definition of Warp Drive or is it saying the Romulans did not have faster-than-light travel during the Earth-Romulan Wars?
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Jun 22, 2017 05:45
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Kavak posted:So is SFB using a different definition of Warp Drive or is it saying the Romulans did not have faster-than-light travel during the Earth-Romulan Wars? The "no-warp" thing came directly from the show. In Balance Of Terror the Romulan ship is explicitly stated to be sublight. Early on SFB just took this at face value, but later on introduced the concept of "Non-Tactical Warp", which is a low-grade warp field generated by the impulse engines that takes so much of their power you can't possibly fight while using it.
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Jun 22, 2017 06:06
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That can be chalked up to
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Jun 22, 2017 06:17
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The main hitting power of the Gorn ships is still their own plasmas, but they tend to hav ea lot of phasers on them. Cloaking will make us very hard to hit but not impossible, particularly if they do something mean like dropping mines in our path. think we should stay at long range, charge plasma and fire phasers at first. If the gorns launch their own plasmas, cloak to throw off thier lock and then plasma them in turn while viable. Cloaking means we'll be moving about the speed of a VW Beetle going uphill loaded like a clown car with almost no power so it should be used sparingly. with plasmas we should probably focus fire on one target, and try to disable/kill it. The Gorns are slightly superior to us on ships, so we should try and concentrate fire on one of them at a time to see if we can get a mission kill.
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Jun 22, 2017 06:18
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Yep. Time a volley to converge on a ship at the same time. Maybe fire a pseudo-torp first to soak up some phasers - depends on how big of suckers they are.
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Jun 22, 2017 06:23
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The destroyer is closer, we can focus it and kill it quickly but we'll see how they're maneuvering first.
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Jun 22, 2017 06:55
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Mission parameters are harrass the Gorn and cause them some ruckus without exposing ourselves. So if we can get a mission kill on one ship and get away we can take that. Our ships aren't quite as survivable as thier's and we will get mauled if the fight goes on too long - Gorn ships are redundant suckers and have lots of guns, and once our first plasma volley is in we're not ableot hit back well.
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Jun 22, 2017 07:31
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Playing With Plasma - Turn 1 The crew of the Esemer stand huddled around the central control console. Each Lieutenant studiously minding his station, each painfully aware of the cold glare leveled at them by their Commander. “We are reaching the outskirts of the nearest Gorn base in this sector, be on your guard,” the ships Centurion called to them. The sensors officer jumped to attention “Commander. I’ve spotted them, passing between the rocks, the Gorn.” The junior officer delivered this in a clipped voice, barely controlling his excitement at spotting the enemy. Commander Added Space looked to the communications officer, “Signal the Cathex, attack pattern Delta!” Both War Eagles begin to charge their weapons in unison and continue at a steady speed towards the asteroid belt. Both Gorn ships suddenly burst to life on the sensor displays of both Romulan ships, automated alarm systems blaring at the sure sight of enemy vessels. The Gorn were plain to see on visual sensors as well, their engines had jumped to life, both ships slamming to the maximum speed their warp engines could bring them up to from their previous leisurely patrol speed. The Gorn Destroyer, being closer to their enemy looping around to allow their less maneuverable companion to catch up. "The Gorn must have detected the charging of our weapons systems sir." Observed a Lieutenant. "Quiet!" yelled the Centurion, and all four of the Junior Officers snapped to attention. Energy Allocation Both war eagles energize fire control, shields, and life support [4], fully charge the Phaser Capacitors [6], begin charging Plasma Torpedoes [2], reserve warp power for Cloaking [6], and set off towards the enemy at speed factor 8. SSDs Romulan: Added Space  Tagichatn  Gorn: DD  CA  Maps Overview  Romulan  Gorn  Edit: Sorry about the hosed up movement trails, my "slip" button is broken so I had to drag the ships, and it ends up putting the movement trail onto a hex spline instead of to the hex center. Hopefully I can track down that bug and fix it before the next turn. Also a little rules update about Cloaking devices, if you did your homework and watched the historical material (The Balance of Terror) you will know that the sensors on board the Enterprise had no trouble at all detecting the general motion and speed of the Romulan vessel under cloak (once they knew what to look for), but they could not gain a weapons lock. That is how cloaking devices work in Star Fleet Battles, your ship's position is not hidden, but your effective range is increased for all relevant calculations. Also there are some complex interactions for "sensor locks" which are a requisite for firing at all, but I wont be outlining them all here, suffice to say once you are cloaked it is not a sure thing that anyone will be able to even shoot at you, and if they try they are likely to have no effect. However, cloaking and de-cloaking are not instantaneous, it takes 5 "impulses" to fully cloak or de-cloak and during that time you are progressively more or less vulnerable. Since impulses will all happen while I am executing your orders, if you can think for example of a reason you might want to start cloaking or de-cloaking during the next turn, make sure to give me guidelines to work with. Oh and you can't fire while cloaked, cloaking, or de-cloaking, but you can charge your weapons, if you intend to stay cloaked for a whole turn you don't need to allocate energy to fire control (but make sure you have at least 1 battery point or reserve warp in case something unforeseen happens to turn it back on). If a seeking weapon is chasing you and you cloak, there is a good chance it will lose track. VendoViper fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 05:58
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Basically mostly for cloaking you want to do it to disengage at long range. While you can charge things while cloaked, you're also vulneable while doing so, and there are way sto hit you while cloaked eve with the mega ECM boost you get from it. Generally a lot of ships if you are cloaking will get as close as they can, and as soon as you start to decloak will alpha strike you during the cloaking phase. The cloak will use most of your power so you will have limited speed while doing it and your enemy can still tell where you are so can leisuirely keep pace. If you are loading/charging plasmas during that phase, they can alpha strike you in egneral before you can get them off. Do not try and run away from a close quarters engagement while cloaking in most cases. You are slow, you take awhile to cloak, and you can be nailed hard while doing so. Then also your enemy can loop around and drop mines in your path.. Randoly do the War Eagles have Nuclear Space Mines or not?
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Jun 23, 2017 06:13
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wedgekree posted:Randoly do the War Eagles have Nuclear Space Mines or not? Each War Eagle has a complement of 5 space mines. They can either be dropped into a hex as you leave it, or if you drop a shield arc for an impulse and have your transporter charged, placed in a hex some distance that I don't know off hand away.
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Jun 23, 2017 07:15
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VendoViper posted:Each War Eagle has a complement of 5 space mines. They can either be dropped into a hex as you leave it, or if you drop a shield arc for an impulse and have your transporter charged, placed in a hex some distance that I don't know off hand away. Some of the older Romulan ships had a special - Nuclear Space Mines that were pretty nasty. They were the counter for someone chasing you while cloaked as I think you could drop one. Lot of ships would just tank a mine while after a cloaked ship if dropped as it didn't do that much damage. A nuke, OTOH, was fairly nasty and effective for keepin gthem far. If the Gorn survive the salvo and go to pursue, if we have them dropping a cluster of them together would be painful.
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Jun 23, 2017 07:33
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Looks like War Eagles have one Nuclear Space Mine, which must be dropped out the shuttlebay. And transporter mines can be placed up to 5 hexes away.
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Jun 24, 2017 03:56
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I'm thinking we stay the course. Fire if they get in range 5, end the turn with the DD in the FA arc. Added Space fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Jun 24, 2017 |
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Jun 24, 2017 04:37
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Is it too late to vote for Hydrans?
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Jun 24, 2017 05:18
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If that lets us throw in the Federation then I second. Edit: Tholians Kavak fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Jun 24, 2017 |
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Jun 24, 2017 05:24
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I only own the Captains Basic Set. So unless we switch over to Federation Commander (I have the Klingon Border). We will need to wait for me to get at least a SSD book to make the Tholians interesting, as mine only has a Corvette. The Tholian web device does look neat. What is up with Hydrans?
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Jun 24, 2017 05:40
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Yeah, stay the course, fire on the DD if there's 66% chance to hit. Reserve one phaser for a plasma torp until impulse 24. Firing after that means it's on cooldown for a quarter turn next turn right?
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Jun 24, 2017 05:45
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VendoViper posted:What is up with Hydrans?  They're a giant space monarchy (Royal family of 30,000 with 1,200 prices and princesses who have claims to the throne) who used to be occupied by the Klingons and Lyrans and are now a Federation ally. I do not remember how they work gameplay wise but I'm sure someone here knows
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Jun 24, 2017 05:52
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Looks like their deal is fighters and fusion beams, while I don't have them in my rule book, guessing from the SSDs I see floating around the internet, they look like they are probably the heavy weapon version of Phasers.
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Jun 24, 2017 06:49
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VendoViper posted:Looks like their deal is fighters and fusion beams, while I don't have them in my rule book, guessing from the SSDs I see floating around the internet, they look like they are probably the heavy weapon version of Phasers. Fusions are basically high power super short range death cannon. Hydrants also have the Hellbore, a long range heavy weapon that always focuses damage on the weakest enemy shield.
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Jun 24, 2017 07:17
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Voting for Feddies as far as scenario/campaign goes. They can end up justifiably matching up against almost anyone, and I actually find their ships toughest to use as they don't have a lot of the specialties a lot of other races have when ti comes to weapons, which makes it trickier for them to counter folks but still possible.
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Jun 24, 2017 07:41
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VendoViper posted:I only own the Captains Basic Set. So unless we switch over to Federation Commander (I have the Klingon Border). We will need to wait for me to get at least a SSD book to make the Tholians interesting, as mine only has a Corvette. The Tholian web device does look neat. What is up with Hydrans? I strongly suggest you pick up the Master Rulebook ($50) at the very least. That covers the rules for all systems, and allows you to use any random SSD you find (although you'll still run into trouble with parasite units) without much hassle. It's also properly organized, where getting the same rules in separate products is a pain in the neck.
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Jun 24, 2017 18:31
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Actually I want to vote Federation because it has the greatest potential for humorous gifs.
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Jun 25, 2017 02:31
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Just checking that the plan is still to allocate for cloak?
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Jun 25, 2017 02:44
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Yep.
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Jun 25, 2017 03:22
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Yes.
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Jun 25, 2017 03:54
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Playing with Plasma - Turn 2 Energy Allocation Both War Eagles allocate energy in the same manner as before, except with their Phaser Capacitors fully charged they have 6 additional energy which is routed to general shield reinforcement. Both Gorn ships accelerate further then turn to cross the asteroid belt. The Romulan War Eagles are moving slowly are are able to turn more often. The Gorn Captains, overeager in their zeal, find themselves unable to maneuver before traveling four and five hexes respectively, while the romulans only need to traverse two. Judging the the situation, the Romulan Commanders give the order to turn in and attack. The Captain of the Gorn Destroyer realizes his mistake too late, desperately he tries to turn his ship away, but he has already committed his vessel to cross in front of the pair of War Eagles at close range. Impulse 22 Seeing that the Gorn Destroyer will move out of their forward arc on the next impulse Commanders Tagichatn and Added Space both reach the same conclusion, FIRE! Tagichatn declares volley of 4 Phaser Is in the forward arc. Target Gorn DD, Arc 2, Range 4. Added Space declares volley of 4 Phaser 1s in the forward arc. Target Gorn DD, Arc 2 Range 3. Gorn DD The Gorn returns fire in kind, volley 2 Phaser 1s in the Forward Extended, and Right Side arcs. Target Added Space, Arc 2 Range 3.  Rolls Tagichatn Rolls 6 : 2 Damage Rolls 5 : 3 Damage Rolls 1 : 5 Damage Rolls 2 : 5 Damage Added Space Rolls 2 : 5 Damage Rolls 4 : 4 Damage Rolls 6 : 3 Damage Rolls 5 : 4 Damage Gorn DD Rolls 1 : 6 Damage Rolls 6 : 3 Damage Results Added Space Takes 9 Points of Damage to Shield 2. With 3 points of general reinforcement, that leaves Shield 2 at 19. Gorn DD Takes 31 Points of Damage to Shield 2. With 10 points absorbed by the Shield, Gorn DD takes 21 points of internal Damage. The concentrated Phaser fire is too much for the Destroyers number two shield and it immediately collapses. Eight Phaser beams play across the unprotected hull of the Destroyer. Both main decks of the ship rupture and start venting into space. The Phaser arrays on either side of the ship are sheared off, and the deck of a shuttle bay explodes in flame. Both warp engines flicker as a beam crosses from one nacelle to the other, along the way the ship’s battery and reactor explode sending debris flying from the ship to rattle about the deflector screens and settle in a cloud behind the ship. Maps Overview  Close Up  SSDs Added Space http://imgur.com/FjeV0PA.png[/timg] Tagichatn  Gorn CA  Gorn DD 
VendoViper fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Jun 25, 2017 |
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Jun 25, 2017 06:37
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You'd think destroying all of its hull points would at least kill some Crew units.
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Jun 25, 2017 06:52
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Kavak posted:You'd think destroying all of its hull points would at least kill some Crew units. The Gorn j0ust batted away the collapsing hull plating, clearly
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Jun 25, 2017 06:59
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I think it has actually. I will have to check the rules again, but I want to say every ten points of damage destroys a crew unit.
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Jun 25, 2017 07:08
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Wow, that's a pretty brutal first exchange and haven't even firred the plasmas yet. Maneuvering out of sync cost them - one ship is nearly crippled, and the two can't support one another effectively now. Think it's worth it to when done put all plasmas on the fresh ship to try and cripple it quickly so can kill both Gorn ships or go for a guaranteed kill on the nearly disabled one?
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Jun 25, 2017 07:14
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Can we teleport over some mines or do we have to power the teleporter at the start of the round? Maybe send over our boarding parties? Tenative plans - bump our speed up, get close to the cruiser, fire off one psuedo torp from me and full torps next impulse, break counter-clockwise. Phaser the poo poo out of any shuttlecraft that launch. Added Space fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Jun 25, 2017 |
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Jun 25, 2017 07:29
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